


Sunspot

by gazeteur



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 18:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11903967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazeteur/pseuds/gazeteur
Summary: When you’re dragging yourself—fingernails-on-chalkboard style—from city to city, state to state, between competitions in a beat-up Pontiac Firebird (the only thing of value that Alina’s parents left her after their deaths) perhaps it’s normal to hallucinate your rival sitting in the back of your car talking sense to you.——AKA the 90s (a dubious label at best) skateboarding fic no one asked for.





	Sunspot

When you’re dragging yourself—fingernails-on-chalkboard style—from city to city, state to state, between competitions in a beat-up Pontiac Firebird (the only thing of value that Alina’s parents left her after their deaths) perhaps it’s normal to hallucinate your rival sitting in the back of your car talking sense to you.

“Isn’t Venice Beach in the other direction?”

Alina almost veers off the highway, before a cacophony of honks rights her in her lane.

“What. The. Hell. Are you doing in my car?” Alina hisses, tilting her eyes up to the rearview mirror to get a better look at the unwelcome guest in the backseat.

He must have snuck in during the time she tossed her stuff—skateboards, protective gear and all—in the backseat to go pay for parking. Alina was too distracted by the thought of getting on the road again—to evade the crush of the crowd leaving the games—to check. Leaving early meant missing the men’s skateboarding event, which is what she’s planned to do all along. But she has barely left the games, and already the games are coming back to haunt her.

“Aleksander,” she says his name as a realisation when she sees his face in its entirety in the mirror. Aleksander Morozova, the new darling of the skating scene who came out of nowhere seemingly overnight. A dark horse. A favourite poised to sweep the games. Rumours were swirling that he’s attempting to strike the last entry off his list of tricks—a 900. “Do I have to ask you again, why are you in my car?”

“Aleks will do,” he says, blinking owlishly. He pulls himself to a sitting position, no easy feat with the narrow leg room and myriad of things she has thrown about in the back.

Alina hazards another glimpse in the mirror, taking in his slightly dishevelled appearance.

Was he just… taking a nap in her car?

“Stop at that gas station,” he says calmly, having seen something in the distance that is to his liking.

Alina obeys, muttering under her breath all the while as she switches lanes on the interstate and weaves between the other vehicles. Once the car rolls to a stop near the station, Alina turns around, a tanned hand braced on the centre rest. Impatiently she pushes her sunglasses up.

It’s strange to look at him now, a slouched figure delineated by the sun, sitting half in the shade and half out of it. Alina remembers watching him a few tournaments back, doing tricks with hands that know where to rest, to brace and to fling effortlessly—a carelessness that deceives at first glance—into the air. The silhouette of precision she has glimpsed so much of on the ramps is now running a finger along the car door, gaze caught by something out the backseat window.

Nobody runs their hand along things like that unless they have something to say, or something they want.

Alina voices it as much, “Well, spit it out.”

“I could teach you,” he says finally, to the car door or something past it. 

Alina snorts. Who was he—a pro skater who takes his “dark horse” label a little too seriously with the copious amounts of black permeating his wardrobe—to tell her what to do? What is he trying to imply?

He doesn’t wait for her answer, opening the car door and scooting out. Suddenly there’s a skateboard flipped and caught in his hand—his own, of course—and it’s the first time Alina has a chance to look at it up close. The deck is all-black, save for a splinter of white spidering across its surface like a crack. She is on the verge of deciding if it’s part of the design or not when he leaps out of her car feet-first, into the sun.

Distracted, her hand goes for the volume knob on the radio. It is not music that meets her ears, but a live report from the games.

_“Aleksander has done it! The first 900 at the—”_

Alina thumbs the radio down a notch but the words—number, really—still ring in her head. _A 900._

He hasn’t walked away yet.

“The trick.” He’s right next to her window, bending down to look at her from his height. She isn’t sure how he knows, but he reads her thoughts out loud anyways. “Would you like me to teach you?”

It’s hard to tell what he thinks. He’s just so… inscrutable, both on and off the ramp. Like machined precision, and something sardonic as well: the telling of an inside joke to an audience of one.

She had wanted the 900 to herself, to prove to the world she could. But tricks are like dominos. Tricks are like cards. Master one and another is dealt to you. It is also sometimes fleeting, scarce—like winning a lottery. Perhaps a little guidance wouldn’t hurt.

The leather-covered steering wheel squeaks as Alina squeezes it. “If I see you at Venice Beach,” she responds carefully. It isn’t much of a promise, but it’s all she will allow herself to say.

_“Speaking of the devil, where is he? Let’s get a word from the champion himself—“_

“Time for me to get back.” With something in-between a nod and a shrug Aleksander turns to go. Something in his hand glints in the light as he tosses and catches it, skateboard cradled under his other arm.

Alina sticks her head out of the window to get a view of the object, which looks suspiciously like keys. She watches as he walks up to a pitch-black Impala a distance away, sitting like a strange, off-kilter warning under the desert sun. She watches, with increasingly furrowed brows, as he gets into it and drives off. 

Wait. If his car is parked here, then—

Oh. _Oh._ That smug, assuming bastard.


End file.
